Hi, Tea.

I made tea for the first time this season.

I don't want to get all goopity about it, especially after yesterday's mush-fest about my blushing young bride of *ahem* seventeen summers, but I have to admit that it felt good.

I miss tea when it's not there, but I don't realize that I miss it until I've been reintroduced to it again, when the temperature gets to around forty five, something clicks inside of me, and I realize it's what I've wanted all along.

I can't even bring myself to drink it when I'm not feeling well. Even when my throat is sore and my glands are pelican-sized, I still reach for the coffee. I don't know why-- it probably has something to do with addiction.

I'm sitting here, rather mesmerized, actually, by the steam that is pouring out from the depths of my metal Thermos travel mug. I've just taken the top off, you see, to cool the tea down a little bit and the steam is just billowing out and drifting off to the right before evaporating about three feet into the air above the computer monitor. Watching the steam pour forth from the mug reminds me of the time in my life when I smoked cigars.

I didn't like the taste very much-- I can't imagine anybody does. Then again, I suppose there are people who gleefully buffet out of their lovers' assholes, so who am I to judge the taste buds of another? Anyway, what I really enjoyed about cigars was lighting them at night and watching the smoke tumble out from the big, fat, luminous end. I loved to watch the smoke snake through the darkness, adding a bit of noir to the night sky. It made me feel that I was more important than I was, more interesting, more debonair.

Less dickhead.

Unlike the taste of cigars, I very much like the taste of tea. At least, after I've placed three teaspoons of sugar into it, that is. My wife would posit that I don't actually like tea, just like she insists that I don't actually like coffee, as the same amount of sugar (plus some whole milk, if readily available) is required for my palate. Perhaps she's right. I mean, she is my wife, after all, so her chances are pretty good.

When we were in Bali on our honeymoon, we moved from a sumptuous hotel in Ubud to a lodging of lesser quality after a brief stay in the beach town of Lovina. It was pouring rain when as we trudged to our new lodging, situated right next to a rice paddy and a throng of ducks. After we climbed the stairs, the sun started to come out, and we were positively drenched. The manager of the hotel brought us up a tray of tea, and I remember that the sugar bowl had ants crawling about inside. Well, some of them were crawling. It looked like a kindergartener's science experiment. Rather than complain to the manager about the sugar infestation, I just sat with my wife on our porch and watched the ducks parade around the rice paddy. I think this is probably why I failed the FBI examination I took recently-- too passive, too inclined to avoid confrontation.

Tea drinkers the world over are probably like that. Tea's not a terribly aggressive drink, and I suppose that's partly why the English love it so much. Tea is very English, even before there were the English. You hear all the time about people getting hopped up on caffeine from too much coffee. Too much tea and you just get very mellow, and you have to pee a lot.

After the autumn and the winter go by the wayside, I'll pack up the tea and it'll hibernate at the back of the cupboard, usurped by pasta boxes and containers of orange jelly candies and granola bars. I'll regret that I won't have the urge to drink any of it during the warmer months, but I probably won't miss it. The same way I don't miss cigars, and waking up with cadaver-breath and thick, green mucous in the back of my throat.

Or peeing all the time, while being very mellow about it all-- probably wearing corduroys.